NOVEL WEB Chapter 39: The Year Of The Raid
Auren and Kenzo were finally let go from the old scribe's barn. The guy punished kids who misbehaved by making them work for him. Five of them had to wash a cow. Not fun — not fun at all.
Once Auren arrived home, he took another bath, then had lunch and a nap with Theren. The little dude was fun to play with, even with conflicted thoughts in his mind — Auren tried his best never to focus much on them and just enjoy the time together. Theren enjoyed it too — once they were exhausted after messing around in the house, sleeping came naturally as Sable sang a lullaby or told a story — the same as she had done with him.
In the early evening, Auren and Kenzo went out in the village for an hour and a half. Auren wasn't a fan of wasting his time without any reason, but this hour was something in which they discovered new things and information about the village and played around with other kids. It was a nice change in scenery from his continuous training schedule.
When there was no class, Auren trained himself the whole day. Once the evening was losing sun, they quickly made it to their homes, where Auren continued his training. Thralls and Echoes were an ever-present threat — even with walls, their own land produced them from who knew where. Hunting them down every day was meaningless, yet Dante and other grown-ups did so every two weeks — they could not let too many Thralls accumulate inside the walls.
The reason Auren was practicing his swordsmanship so much was because of the condition Dante had set for him. This was the year they had to do a raid, and this time Dante could not deny their lord again. Only a Baron with his men could participate in the raid that went on for two months — March and April.
March was still the last month of winter, which began in November, but they started in this month anyway, with temperature slowly getting back to normal. Even in mid-winter, the temperature barely went down to 10 degrees Celsius. But that was only for Greenvale, which was called blessed for growing wheat and other crops, along with having lush green forests. Other regions faced true cold, with snowfall and everything. Without heaters and stuff, that was a really harsh condition to live in.
Still, in March and April, all Barons of the five regions could raid each other's land. It wasn't like a bandit coming to loot though. The fight happened far from the towns and villages. Which Baron would fight which one was decided by the challenge issued in a harvest festival. Each raid year, all the barons gathered to celebrate the harvest festival in the Viscount's palace, where the challenges were issued in front of the three Earls.
There was another such gathering after the harvest festival in the year of the raid — this one was the biggest thing for all people of the region. It happened in the capital city where the head of the family lived. All four Dukes, with their three Earls each, arrived and received blessings from the head of the family before issuing their challenges. This is part of a series from My Virtual Library Empire (M|V|L1EMPYR).
An Earl could not issue a challenge — well, he could, but only onto another Duke's Earl, and even that only when their Duke did not challenge another Duke for the battle.
There was no limit as to how many challenges a Baron, Earl, or a Duke could ensue — but once the challenge was done, nothing was certain. Both parties could initiate the fight. Which meant declaring a day when they were ready to fight; whoever did it first was the challenger, and the one who was too busy getting ready to not declare a date was the one called the defender. Those were just titles though — the raid was actually just a fight of two parties in an open field. The place was already decided by the two leaders. No traps or weapons other than melee ones were allowed — it was simply a matter of strength.
The rule was to stop fighting when the second party yielded. Killing a leader was not considered very good but was still allowed — one was simply supposed to defeat one another and claim the prize. The guy who killed the other lord wouldn't have his challenge accepted by others easily afterward.
The no-killing part did not apply to the soldiers though — those could die, who cares. The goal of the battle was to show the other lord he or she could not win no matter what — so they would yield early before losing more men and making themselves weak.
Dante had said he wouldn't take him on the raid. Which was fine with Auren, since he knew only boys around thirteen were considered warriors. There were exceptions though, as in everything — some knights and lords did bring their children along to see the battle take place from the sidelines, or sometimes to even fight alongside them to gain experience.
Dante did offer him the chance to earn his place though, just like the guy had agreed to take him along in the forest to hunt if.. and only if he managed to land a hit on Dante. Dante thought himself very clever, thinking Auren would never manage to land a hit — at least not for another year or three.
But Auren was determined to prove the smug guy wrong. He was not very into battle and seeing people fight, but after learning swordsmanship, Auren was curious to see how real life-and-death battles were fought and where exactly he stood in the hierarchy of warriors with his simple skills and object summon.
He was very much interested in seeing the various different species of animal summons and how it enhanced blue-rank summoners' bodies and how they used that in active battle. Auren continued training well into the evening till it was time to lock the doors and have dinner. Seeing him increase his efforts in training, Dante always smiled smugly — but Auren did not let the guy play with his mind.